So busy but having fun.

I had no time to write a blog yesterday because we were so busy.

We had a fabulous time at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg.  Mark was in heaven.  His plan is buy a membership to support it.  We actually had Subway salads for lunch on the way and stayed to eat dinner in the museum cafe.  They had a quinoa bowl with charred veggies and arugula.  It was far better than we expected it to be.  We also ordered tortilla chips and dips (salsa and guacamole).  I ate a lot of chips with salsa, but not guacamole.  I don't like it.  Yuck.
I was concerned that I would put on some water weight due to all that sodium. I did not, but I just stayed the same.

Yest,erday we left at 6:30 a.m. to head to Toy Story Land for one hour with limited attendance. It was a new thing called Passholder Playtime.  Amazing.  We told Slinky Dog Dash twice, and I loved it.  It might be my new favorite ride!  We rode the Space Aliens and Toy Story Mania as well.  At exactly 9 a.m. a ton of people showed up, and by 9:05 a.m. the line for Slinky Dog was an hour long. We literally just walked on!  It was worth it to get up early.

We went to Epcot, got our Passholder Magnet, and were logged in for our first of four visits towards getting a Mickey cutting board.  It's tiny!  I joked that you could only cut one cherry tomato at a time on it.  lol

After that we went to Winn Dixie, Trader Joe's, Walmart, home for a late lunch, the gym, ate an early dinner, and ran off to SOJC for choir rehearsal, which got me home at 10:30.  EXHAUSTED.

But it didn't stop there.  Between 2 and 4 p.m. I had sat at the computer booking flights for our Asian trip.  I got frustrated trying to do the SF to Hong Kong and HK to Shanghai parts, but I was able to use my American Airline miles to book the Orlando to San Jose part and the Tokyo back home to Orlando part.  At 10:30 I got on the phone with Evey and with her help and expertise, we found appropriate flights (much better ones than I was finding on my own, Thank you, Evey) and got them booked, too.  I shot those email confirmations and itineraries to our travel agent and to the Visa Central people in Houston who will be adding that to our application process for the China Visa.

Now we just have to book the hotels!

Wow,  As Evey said last night, "I guess we're really doing this!"  Yes, we really are.

Weight-wise, I have had a good week. I"m 265.8 this morning, so that was very exciting.  We are eating lunch at Beef O'Brady's for the NARFE monthly meeting in Plant City and then dinner at two of the Epcot Food and Wine kiosks.  I'm sure there will be a ton of sodium in those meals, but I'm hoping the calories won't be too far over my allotment and that all the walking and sweating will work those calories off.  We shall see tomorrow at the official Weigh-in.  As of now, I'm showing a five pound drop for the week, so I really hope that is still true tomorrow morning!

I had planned to post some pictures of the museum and Toy Story Land, but the computer is not uploading the pictures from my phone for some reason.  It's been trying for half an hour, and I just cancelled that.  I'm trying a second time, but it's time to go very soon, so I don't know if there will be time to get that upload finished. I'm sure it will work eventually, and I'll put up pictures in a future blog.  If you are a Facebook friend, you've already seen them anyway.

Upcoming fun for Mark in St. Petersburg.

Tomorrow's blog should feature a lot of pictures from today's visit to the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg.  It is a relatively new museum, opening just this past April.  Mark is very excited to go!  We are making it a Tourist Tuesday (and it's actually on a Tuesday!) by going with good friends Susie and Ed Goldberg.

I won a LOT of Mahj games yesterday, 4 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.  It was a good day for me.  But everyone won at least once, so that made it a good day for everyone.

I ate only 1200 calories yesterday and dropped another half pound, down to 266.5 this morning. I also went to the gym and lifted weights for the first time since last November.  I stopped going when my back went out last October and my shoulder was bad.  I went only one day last November, but the shoulder hurt too much and I didn't go back.  Recently, I read an article about muscle loss in seniors.  It encouraged weight training to maintain what muscle we have because aging alone is going to deplete it.  It got me thinking that I'd better get back to the weight machines.  I didn't do every machine or many reps or much weight, but ti's a start.  And nothing hurt. My back and shoulder all took it very well.  My plan is to do it three days a week when Mark goes.

No SeaWorld.

The forecast put us off yesterday after all.  We kept watching the TV local weather, and it just looked like there was a high probability that we'd be walking around SeaWorld feeling wet and soggy all day.  There was also a high probability that the night time fireworks/water pageant show that we especially wanted to see would be cancelled.  So around 1:30 in the afternoon we decided to stay home.  At around 9 p.m., Mark checked the weather app, which showed the Orlando area under heavy thunderstorms and rain.  We feel we made the right decision.

We were both a little disappointed that we didn't get to go, but as Mark said, "I would be disgusted if we went and it got rained out."  We watched the whole show on YouTube instead!

It was definitely the right decision for my food choices. I ate all my meals at home, and I'm down TWO more pounds this morning to 267.  I was actually very surprised at that.  It's nice, but it only puts me back to where I was on July 26 before we went to California.  So now I can try to lose some NEW weight.  lol.  Well nothing is really new until I get under 200, which I'm not even trying to do, but I'd love to get under 250.  Somehow that sounds better to me.

My lowest weight, back in early 2010, was 205.  My breast cancer surgery was at  220.  My move to Florida was at 250.  I've been as low as 233 here in Florida, but I didn't stay there long.  It was in early November of 2013, the last year that I did Starliters, and that involved a lot of dancing and a lot of being out of the house so no time to eat. lol

Today all my meals will be at home again.  I am playing Mah Jong at Susie's house in the morning and at Luanne's house in the afternoon.  At 6 p.m. Mark and I both are going to the SOJC choir rehearsal.  We are leaving a half hour earlier than usual because I'm afraid of the end of the Labor Day weekend traffic since it was SO BAD on Saturday morning.  Mark has to go tonight because we are working on songs for another choir member's birthday Shabbat on September 15.  We are also having an unusual Monday night rehearsal to try to make up one that was cancelled.  At any rate, I'll have no time to overeat today!

Tomorrow I cannot say the same.  We are heading out to the new Western Art Museum in St. Pete with Susie and Ed.  We will be eating lunch in the museum cafe and dinner at a Denny's.  Denny's won't be bad, but it's about 700 calories.  I have no idea what lunch at the cafe will be.  I hope it won't be too bad.

269. Heading in the right direction.

We tried to go to shul yesterday.  We were on the road over an hour, but we didn't get there because the traffic was insane.  We realized we weren't going to arrive until 20 minutes before it ended, so we turned around.  Labor Day Weekend traffic?  I don't remember it ever being that bad, so maybe it was an accident.  We don't know, but we left at 9:55 and got home at 11:15 having gone no where but out less than half way to the shul and then back home.  Crazy.

So instead, we had a lovely relaxing day at home all day.  I ate 1200 calories and dropped another pound.  That's a good day in my book.  We watched two Disney animated films, "Big Hero 6," and "Toy Story."  I actually slept through all of "Big Hero 6" when we went to the theater, and "Toy Story" was familiar but also there were lots of scenes we didn't remember.  It was a fun evening.

There were a few moments yesterday when I wanted to cheat on my diet.  I was really having some cravings and thought hard about eating more bread or breaking into the last Tortuga rum cake that I saw in the pantry, but I didn't do it.  I was able to tell myself no and mean it.  For me to brush off the Bad Idea Bear is a huge accomplishment.  lol

Today we plan to go to SeaWorld for the special evening entertainment.  This is actually the very last day that they are running this night time show, but we were never able to schedule a day to go until now.  Unfortunately, there's a 90% chance of rain all afternoon, although it's supposed to be over by 8 p.m.  We are going to check on what time the show is.  Maybe we can still go out there close to that time and miss most of the rain.  Or maybe the forecast will be wrong.  That happens.  It's summer in Florida.  Anything can happen.

270. I'm pleased.

I am pleased to be 270 this morning.  I did overeat challah at dinner, so even with the exercise calories from water aerobics, I was over my allotment for the day.  So to be down a pound this morning made me happy.

I'm still up about three and a half from August 3 when we flew off to Evey and Eric's house, so once I get back to the mid-260s, I'll be VERY happy. If I can stay in control through our many meals in restaurants and holiday meals throughout September, I'd be very happy to drop 10 pounds for the month and go up north on October 3 at 260.  I would ECSTATIC.

We are heading out to the synagogue for services in about half an hour.  Then we will have an easy day in the house, readying and watching TV.  There will be no exercise, but my calories should be good. I'm currently planning only 1100 calories, but that might change in the afternoon if I get hungry.  But I'm SURE it will not be over my allowed amount of 1483.

Friday Weigh-in is good.

I had a good day yesterday, eating 1550 calories.  There was no actual exercise, but my phone Health Data app said I walked 6,800 steps.  I actually found that hard to believe, but I'll take it.

This morning I weighed in at 271.2, which made me very happy.  That is down 3.6 in just one day.  I just KNEW it was mostly water retention.  That means I only gained 8/10 of a pound on the big vacation road trip.  For me that is outstanding. lol

Today should be a good day.  If it doesn't rain, I'll be doing my water aerobics routine for the first time in three weeks and then working in the library.  I'm also eating all my meals at home and will log them all in.  It would be so nice if the last 8/10 are gone tomorrow morning.  Today's weight put me back to where I was in early July. I'm clearly not making a lot of progress because I'm backsliding on each trip (Buffalo, Evey's house, FL's east coast), but now I'm home until October 3.  Well, sort of.  We have a road trip to St. Petersburg on Tuesday that will involve 2 meals out.  Sunday we are going to SeaWorld which will mean dinner there.  September has ALL the Jewish holidays this year, and that always means extra big meals.  We always stay two nights in the Comfort Inn near the synagogue for Yom Kippur with a big dinner out at Landry's before the fast and a break the fast at the synagogue.  So there's lots of opportunity for backsliding if I'm not careful even though we aren't really on any vacations.  Still, I'm determined NOT to backslide because when we leave October 3 on the auto train to board the cruise ship in NJ, I do NOT want to start out in the 270s.  My goal now is to lost about five to eight pounds in September so that I start the cruise trip weighing in the mid to low 260s.  I would love that.

In mid-March we will be going to Evey's and then flying to Hong Kong for the five week Asian trip.  That trip is going to involve 10 nights in hotels and 14 nights on the ship as well as a few nights at Evey's house.  It's also going to involve a LOT of WALKING!  Walking AND sitting have become a problem in the last week.  That day at Castillo de San Marco was very painful.  It used to be that the sciatica, knee arthritis, and spinal stenosis would flare up walking and go away immediately when I sat down.  If I sat for even just a few minutes, I could buy some more time of painfree walking.  Now that doesn't seem to work so well.  The amount of painfree walking was reduced to about one minute after sitting a little while.

But even more worrisome is the sitting!  Now sitting hurts!  It's a different pain, but I'm sure it's still related to the spinal stenosis.  Sitting is giving me a dull ache in my right hip and a throbbing ache from my knee to my ankle on the outside of my leg, mostly the calf area.  This goes away when I stand up, which makes me think sitting is pinching some nerve as a result of sitting.  So now I'm kind of like my friend Judi who has the same condition.  She sits awhile and then stands awhile.  She can't do either one for very long.  The only thing that doesn't hurt right now is laying down or pushing back in my recliner.

In fact, I've been sitting on the kitchen chair typing this blog for about ten minutes, and I can start to feel the hip pain. I'm going to close this out and stand up!

End of conference, Fort Caroline, then home.

We got home around 9:30 last night, tired but happy.

This morning I jumped on the scale to see how much damage I did.  I left the house 11 days ago weighing 270.6, and this morning I weigh 274.8, a gain of 4.2 pounds.  Actually that wasn't was bad as I feared.  Today I hope to be back to my normal eating habits with all meals at home and drop a little tomorrow morning for my official Friday weigh-in.

This morning I played Mah Jongg (won only one game), and after lunch we got all of our papers together for the China Visa application.  I drove it over to the FedEx drop box this afternoon, so that's a good feeling to get that chore done.

The final day of the convention was a four hour marathon business meeting including awards presented to outgoing board members, installation of new board members, Alzheimer's reports and other business type reports, Memorial service for members lost in the last two years, etc.  We sat with Bill and Pat, Laura, Evelyn, Franklin, and Terry, all NARFE friends from Florida that we have been attending NARFE events with for the last eight years.  It ran until 12:30 and then we ate lunch in the restaurant in the hotel that we had not tried.  I had blackened mahi mahi tacos and fries.  Tons of sodium.  We had planned to go to Denny's for dinner, but we ended up going to Sweet Tomatoes instead, which had so many delicious soups, all full of sodium, I'm sure.  lol

Here are some pictures from the final meeting and our visit to Fort Caroline in Jacksonville.

Selfie with me and Pat.

Forst Caroline Visitor Center in Jacksonville.

Getting another passport stamp.

Beautiful view St. John's river, outside of Visitor Center

Entering the fort, a re-creation on a site probably near the original.